


Against the Ropes

by IAmTheNightman98



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Boxer AU, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Lesbian AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 08:50:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20337412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmTheNightman98/pseuds/IAmTheNightman98
Summary: Brooke is a boxer and Vanessa is a ring girl in the biggest women’s championship in the world.They meet at a promotional photo shoot at the start of the season and, despite taking an initial dislike to one another, they quickly realise that they have more in common than they’d thought.





	Against the Ropes

** _Brooke_ **

Life as a Boxer is not what Brooke had expected it to be. 

As a child, she’d wanted to be a ballerina. She liked delicate fabrics and gentle music and flowing ribbons. Her mom had taken her to performances, where she’d thrown roses onto the stage for the dancers at the end of the show. Her heart would clench as the dancers would hold the gifts to their chests, grinning widely as they bowed. Poised and perfect and ready to take on the world. Brooke had watched them and truly believed she could be amongst them. 

But eventually, her love for ballet had dwindled as the boxing gym across the street peaked her interest. She would gaze through the windows as she stretched on the barre, desperately trying to hold her position lest she get yelled at by her perpetually angry coach. She’d steal glances as they sparred, and though that in an odd sort of way, what they were doing was almost like a dance. But unlike the ballerinas the boxers weren’t soft or quiet, they were loud and free, yelling as they struck their targets. Louder still, when they landed a winning blow. 

Another thing that Brooke admired about the boxers is that there was always a winner. And as she watched through the window and saw the victor of the amateur league, chest heaving as he held his arms in the air, she’d felt that victory too. 

One morning, just before her fourteenth birthday, she’d seen a woman in the ring, hair in a tight braid, beating the shit out of a man half her size, and that had been all it had taken to turn her interest away from ballet for good. Before that moment, boxing for Brooke had been a spectator sport. But the knowledge that she could be in there too - tumbling on the mats, instead of having her feet crammed into too tight ballet slippers - it changed something inside of her for good. 

She’d been a part of a group class at first, then started taking one on one lessons with her coach. Through the years Brooke and Nina both began to realise that her skill for boxing was better than most. The talent for remaining poised and keeping rigid control over every part of her body at any given moment, combined with her natural strength and height, meant that she struck gold and landed on a winning streak that carried her straight through to semi-professional fighting. 

When her Nina had told her that she was ready for her first professional fight, a small part of Brooke though back to the ballerinas she’d seen as a child. Expertly skilled in their craft. Showered with love by people who like to watch them succeed. She’d been young and naive, and she’d wondered if that would be what life as a boxer is like. 

It isn’t. 

Boxing fans like to see her win, sure, but what boxing fans really like to see is blood. And pain.The fans love her more when she’s on the ground with her teeth falling out. They love her the most when she pulls herself back up and wins anyways. 

She fights her way through life, both literally and figuratively. She’s learned to develop a hard outer shell to intimidate her opponents. She doesn’t just work as a boxer, she  _ is  _ a boxer. It’s in every fiber of her being. If she tried to take boxing out of her life, she might find that there’s very little of the real Brooke left. Not that she knows who the real Brooke is anymore. 

She’s earned herself a nickname in the fighting community, which is more impressive than it sounds. The Queen of the North. It sounds very regal, delicate even, but nothing dainty or gentle or pretty about the life of a boxer. 

Part of her misses pretty things. 

** _Vanessa _ **

When you’re young and pretty, anything seems possible. 

Vanessa was entering her early teens when she realised she was beautiful. The words had been said to her before then, sure. People told her she was a beautiful baby. Or that they were jealous of her big brown eyes and her long, thick hair. But it wasn’t until much later in life that she realised that these weren’t just casual compliments and that, actually, there might be something different about her. 

At first, she’d been frustrated. It seems paradoxical, but Vanessa had no interest in being beautiful. 

The whole world was worried about being pretty whilst Vanessa worried about being kind and funny and smart and strong. The world didn’t want to hear it. She quickly understood that, although she was well liked, very few people cared about what she had to say. 

But the thing about being pretty is that its very easy to let it become who you are. 

Through school, there was always a party for her to go to. She never had to strike up a conversation. She could act the fool and be loud and brash because there was no real need for her to learn how to charm others with her words. She had dates with different guys every other weekend, and even if it wasn’t quite what she wanted, it was easy. Being a beautiful person, paired up with another beautiful person, because that’s what everyone expects. She fell into the trap of letting her beauty define her, because it was just so damn easy for her to do.

Eventually, she learnt that she could use her beauty to her advantage in more ways that just socially. It started when she’d been sixteen and flirted her way out of a speeding ticket. The teenage boys who worked at the movie theatre would let her in without paying. Her best friends older brother would buy them alcohol at the weekends, if she asked him nicely. 

She joined a modelling agency at seventeen. Her career had taken off slowly at first, but by the time all of her friends were moving away to college, she’d been headhunted by a talent scout and was on her way to Vegas, the boxing capital of the world, to be a ring girl in the biggest championship in the country. 

The pay was incredible, much more than Vanessa knew what to do with, given the fact that almost everything she owned came from companies sending her free products for the advertisements on her social media pages. She always has fun with the girls she worked with too. There’s a strong sense of companionship between ring girls. When you’re exhausted from fending off unwanted advances and sick to fucking death of being treated like a superficial airhead, sometimes they other girls you work with are the only people that understand. 

She’d moved into an apartment with A’keria, another ring girl in the city, after just a few months. She had the money to be able to pay her rent alone four times over, but all of the parties and liquor and photo shoots and expensive dates in the world can’t make up for a lack of companionship. 

After over a year of working for the men’s boxing championship, with no pun intended, Vanessa began to think about throwing in the towel. Sure, the lifestyle was great. It was exactly what she’d wanted when she’d set out down this career path, but she’d had enough. It wasn’t all glitz and glamor. 

The lack of respect in the industry was disgusting. Compliments were enjoyable, but being treated like an empty shell of a person was not. The fighters would think themselves entitled to make degrading sexual comments whilst she was doing her job. And as for the job itself, it was as though nobody could understand that it was hard work. That she would get home in the early hours of the morning and her calves would ache from the heels and her skin would be slick with sweat and beer and fake tan. 

Two months ago, one of her more enthusiastic fans had started sending her fan mail asking for locks of her hair. He described in graphic detail the ways in which he wanted to be with her. And Vaness snapped. 

She called her manager and quit right there and then. Told him that he could shove his job up his ass and that finally, for once in the past year and a half, she was going to eat whatever she wanted and go a day without working out. 

But her manager is no fool, and he wasn’t about to let one of his biggest assets walk away from him, so, he struck up a deal. She would perform in the fights that she was already contracted for, then at the end of the men's championship, he’d shift her over to the women’s division. The pay in the women’s division is significantly less, but she’d be out of the public eye for a long enough to have some down time. 

Vanessa understood what he was doing. He though that if he keeps her just on the fringes of the money and fame that when he offers her a gig as a ring girl in the men’s championship next year, she’s going to come running back to him like a lost puppy. But she’d taken his offer anyways, because she isn’t going to let that happen. 

That had been months ago, and tomorrow, she has the first promotional shoots for the women’s league. 

As she’s performing her routine to get ready - whitening her teeth and shaping her eyebrows and skipping her dinner - she prays that this time, she’s going to seen as something other than just another pretty thing. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short prologue to see whether anyone is interested in this fic becoming a whole thing, so please let me know what you think! 
> 
> I currently have three multi chapter fics in progress, so updates might be a little slower than usual, but if anyone enjoys this idea then I’ll keep the chapters coming. 
> 
> As always, I’m over on tumblr @youre-a-kite.


End file.
